Art Crime

More than seventeen years ago, a self-portrait by Dutch Golden Age master Frans van Mieris the Elder, entitled “A Cavalier (Self Portrait),” was stolen from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. This is Australia’s most significant art theft to date. A Little History About Where the Theft Happened The Art Gallery of…

Sometime between 2002 and 2022, a guestbook documenting the visits of prominent musicians, composers, diplomats and others to the Berlin home of classical music impresarios Hermann and Louise Wolff in the early 20th century was stolen from the archives of the Berliner Philharmoniker, also known as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Hermann Wolff, born in 1865 in…

Almost twenty-five years ago, while the world was welcoming a new millennium, a painting by Paul Cézanne, “Paysage d’Auvers-sur-Oise,” also known as “View of Auvers-sur-Oise,” was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, England. A Little History About Where the Theft Happened The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology (“the Ashmolean”),…

Over eighty-three years ago, property belonging to Adalbert and Hilda Parlagi was confiscated by the Nazis in Vienna, Austria. That property included an early Monet pastel, “Bord du Mer,” which was returned to the Parlagi family descendants by the FBI earlier this month, through the assistance of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. Other artwork,…